Preschool Valentine–A Secret Message

Want to go beyond a card and a candy? Want to give your child’s friends a little fun Valentine activity in addition to a yummy treat?

Well, if you’ve got some time on your hands and if you kids are up for a crafty challenge, you don’t want to miss this project!

It’s quite simple to do and assemble, but the results are very unique and fun!

When my son was in preschool a few years back, we (ok, I 🙂 ) decided to do a search for some fun ideas for his Valentines to add an interactive element, so that the kids in his class would not only get a treat and a “love note”, but also have a little play time.

I had searched and searched the Internet for ideas, and one of them stuck with me.

A Secret Love Letter!

The ideas is to write a love message with a white crayon on your paper, preferably white. It won’t show on its own. Then, you use a little bit of paint and a brush to go over the page, and the secret message will be revealed!

Here’s the post where I had spotted the idea. Heather from Creative Homemakers replaced paint (which was originally in a BHG version) with CoolAid, which I thought was brilliant!

We gathered our supplies and got to work!

SUPPLIES:

Valentine’s Day cardstock (or just plain white paper)

White crayon

CoolAid box of single packs (we had cherry flavor)

A set of paintbrushes

Lollipops (the flat kind. We got ours at Trader Joe’s)

Double sided tape

Ribbon or stickers

Cardstock to print out the “Find My Secret Message” tag

STEP 1

Cut your cardstock paper in half. We used just half a page for each message, and it worked great. If you want to use the whole page, that could work well, too!

STEP 2

Have your child use a white crayon and write his name at the bottom of each page.

My son was a preschooler at the time, so his capabilities and attention span was limited. He only wrote his name at the bottom of the page. But he did so 30 times!!!!! I was beyond impressed! And of course, afterwards he declared that his favorite letter is N…and I….and maybe C….and K. LOL!! Of course, why not? 🙂

After my son had finished signing all his Valentines (with WHITE crayon on WHITE paper–hats off to him!), I wrote the rest of the message, which was quite simple: “You rock!” and added some hearts and “xoxo”.

You can put any message that you think it’s appropriate, as simple or as complicated as you want!

STEP 3

Take your lollipop, a CoolAid pack, and a paint brush, and attach them to each other with double-sided tape. We put the lollipop on the bottom, then coolaid, and the paintbrush on top.

To give a bit of an explanation, I created a tag that said, “FIND MY SECRET MESSAGE”

Take a paper with your secret message, place the pack of assembled goodies on one end, and roll it up, like a scroll. Take a pretty ribbon and tie it all together! The contents should be nice and secure because of the ribbon tie.

STEP 5 (optional)

If you made all Valentines the same or very generic, you can simply give one to each child.

If you customized them to include all the kids’ names, for instance, or different messages for boys and girls or just made certain messages with specific kids in mind, you can take a marker and write the kids’ names on each scroll to know to whom each scroll belongs. This is an extra step, but it’s not required.

We, however, made it even more complicated by cutting out little hearts out of cardstock, writing each child’s name on them, and then attaching them to the ribbon on each scroll. That step was purely for me and my desire to keep crafting, haha!

I was very happy with the way it turned out!!
I hope the kids enjoyed it as well!